She shrugs. “I guess,” she concedes, taking another sip of her drink. “I just don’t think I'm that interesting in general. Wren has her writing and skating, Ken paints and swims. I'm just the boring one.”
“You’re notthatboring. Your personality can be bearable when you’re not being mean to me.”
She barks out a laugh. “That's the new way to tell someone that they have a horrible personality, but they’re kinda pretty so it’s fine.”
“I never said you were pretty,” I challenge. She is pretty. Anyone with eyes can see that. She’s got this regal, old-money look. Like she’ll kill you with just a glance. Like she was made specifically to ruin lives.
“You didn’t have to,” she responds, still smiling.
When our food arrives, we eat in silence. The restaurant isn’t as busy as we thought it would be, but there’s a low buzz coming from families and tables that are full of students. If the guy who owns it wasn’t so shady, it would be a decent place to eat at. The food isn’t half bad either.
We’re halfway through our meal when Scarlett pauses her fork on the way to her mouth. I’m not stupid enough to turn my head no matter how badly I want to and see what’s caught her eye, but that could blow our cover.
“You found our guy, Linda?” I ask, pushing around my food casually. She nods slowly, dropping her gaze, but slightly angling her head right towards the kitchen. I look over slightly, noticing two figures.
One of them is our guy: a tall, tanned, and tattooed man with a deep scar on his cheek that’s healed, easily becoming a stereotype for a drug dealer. There’s another guy, a little shorter, shoulder-length dark brown hair and an untamed beard.
I accidentally drop my fork the second the overhead music stops playing and they both turn to me.
Shit. Scarlett shoots me a look to ask what I’m doing, and I shrug, picking it back up and continue eating, but their eyes are still on us.
I try to keep my cool, pretending to smile and eat, but I can still feel their hot gaze set entirely on us.
Scarlett sighs, rolling her eyes as she gets out of her chair, tossing her brown hair over one shoulder. I can tell that she doesn’t prefer having her hair all down as she’s constantly trying to pull it out of her face. I try my best to stay calm, but it’s hard to do when she sits in the seat next to me, pulling it closer to me.
“Move over,” she demands, her strong perfume hitting me in every place that counts. For a second, it’s all I can fucking smell. Just her. I do as she asks and shuffle my chair closer to the window as she moves hers into me, our thighs touching. The heat from her thigh against mine basically burns straight through my clothes, penetrating every muscle that becomes fully aware of her presence.
“What are you doing?” I ask, glancing up at the two people who arestillwatching us and then back at her.
“We need to give them a reason to stop staring,” she replies. She places her hand on my thigh, and I swear I almost burst into flames. Her hand looks so fucking tiny against me, and my dick twitches at the sight. That is a No-Go Zone. Especially for her. “Look at me like you love me, Danny.”
“Like I- What?” I splutter, trying to search her eyes for something to tell me this is a joke, but there’s nothing. All that is in those dark brown eyes is concentration and someone with a plan.
“Just look at me like I’m someone you want to take home tonight. You can do that right?” I just blink at her. She’s so close to me now and I’m hyper-aware of every single inch of her.
The soft curve of her nose, covered loosely with freckles that are only visible this close. The golden swirl in her eyes. The fullness of her pink lips as she rolls them in, blinking back at me.
Her right hand is still on my thigh while she uses her other to grab my hand, placing it onto her hot neck, my fingers naturally curling around the back like they just belong there. This is unknown territory.
She releases her hand from mine and places it gently on my shoulder instead. Her face remains unbothered apart from the faint redness of her cheek.
“Just keep your hand there and look at me. Like,really,look at me.”
“I’m looking,” I murmur. I do as she asks and as I stare straight into her eyes. I keep my thumb on the base of her throat, feeling her pulse hammer and my fingers curl to the nape of her neck, and I tug a strand of her hair.
At the contact, her eye twitches slightly as she tilts her head further back, giving my hand more access to her hair. I try to get as much as I can without going too far. Needing her close, but not too close. Everything about her physically is so fucking soft, while on the inside she’s as hard as granite. It’s like she was made to melt into my hands.
As I keep looking at her, trying to look straight through her, I watch as her breathing starts to quicken, and she grips onto my thigh. Hard. From what was once a gentle touch, her grip suddenly turns lethal as she holds onto it like it’s anchoring her.
We’re both breathing heavily now, just staring at each other as she holds onto me, and I hold onto her. I don’t think she even notices she’s doing it.
I notice, though. I notice everything about her.
There’s a brief moment that can only be described as peace. Where we’re not trying to do anything other than exist in each other's presence. We’re not rivals. I’m not the stupid son of a million-dollar company. She’s not the only daughter to a CEO of a multi-million-dollar brand.
We’re just Scarlett and Evan: two souls who somehow, in some weird way, are looking at each other like they know each other. Like they just understand.
Like I said, the moment is brief.
